


No Light, No Light

by BackinBlack47



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dark Rey, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Jedi Ben Solo, Reylo Week, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-06 23:59:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15206348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackinBlack47/pseuds/BackinBlack47
Summary: A role reversal with Jedi Ben Solo and Dark Side Rey. Somewhat based off the events of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Short (ish) and sweet.Title from the song No Light, No Light by Florence + The Machine.





	No Light, No Light

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to go up on the 6th, for Role Reversal, but life caught up with me and I wasn't able to edit it until the 7th. But I hope you enjoy!

Ben Solo has always been drawn to Rey of Jakku.

He is 15 years old when he first sees her at Niima Outpost. He is glued to Chewie’s side as they push through the crowded space, always overwhelmed in crowded spaces.

He is with Chewie, leaving the Millennium Falcon for good. They leave the ship at a junkyard, with a Crolute named Unkar Plutt. Something about the man doesn’t sit right with Ben. He seems too eager for money, too eager to possess, as though he would do anything for his own gain. Ben is glad when he and Chewie finally leave, the keys to the falcon firmly clutched in Plutt’s grimy fist.

“Why does Lando owe him a debt?” Ben asks. Chewie roars in response. Ben rolls his eyes. “Of course it was gambling. Lucky my parents never used the Falcon then.”

Chewie coos sadly as they walk away from the falcon. Outside of Plutt’s junkyard, there is a group of children standing clustered together, staring at him at Chewie.

One of the children steps forward.

“Are you a Jedi?” she asks, pointing to the lightsaber clipped at his belt. She has brown hair, tied up in three slightly askew buns.

“Almost,” he says. He is gangly and awkward in his teenage years and had never been good at talking to other people. He hates being noticed in this way. He shifts uncomfortably, and he hears Chewie talking to the other children. Chewie had always loved kids.  

“I’m going to be a Jedi one day too,” she says.

He nods. “Mmhmm,” he says, his eyes searching for Chewie to save him from this situation. The wookie eventually sees his distress and says goodbye to the hoard of children clustered around him.

Chewie sides up to him and says something quietly to the girl.

“Okay,” the girl says. “Goodbye then.”

He and Chewie walk back to Ben’s borrowed ship. He had followed the Falcon here, so they would have a way back.

“Shut up,” he says to Chewie as the wookie laughs.

She is a small thing then, one of the normal children left on Jakku. He goes back home with Chewie, and he does not think of her for years.

 

*

 

He becomes a fully-fledged Jedi at 22. A lifetime of training, all leading up to the moment when he is officially named a Jedi master, ready to take on padawans if he so chooses. Han and Leia come to the temple to congratulate him. Even though he has never been close to his parents, his heart sings with joy when they both wrap their arms around him and tell him how proud they are.

Han gives him the keys to a shiny new ship with a wink. “Knock ‘em dead, kid.”

It takes all of Ben’s self-control not to run like he did on his birthday when he was a little kid. It’s spacious inside, more than enough room for two people. His grin nearly splits his face in two.

 

*

 

The fight against the First Order and Snoke begins when he is 23.

He joins the Resistance against the protests of his mother.

“I love what I do Ben, but I have to say that I regret devoting my entire life to politics,” she tells him one night over dinner. “You can fight, but don’t get too involved. There’s already a price on your head because you’re my son. You’ll be in even more danger if you make a name for yourself through the fight.”

She plants a kiss on his forehead while he is still sitting at the table. He’s so much taller than her, she can only reach his face when he’s sitting. “Be safe, Ben,” she says.

 

*

 

He is constantly fighting, constantly traveling. Planet to planet, fighting the First Order for resources, land, weapons. He goes on smuggling runs with Han sometimes, stealing provisions to feed the growing Resistance. The ship his parents had given him becomes banged up and dirty. But it’s his, and it’s home. He boards his ship at night, flies into a safe zone, and collapses into bed. This is his first war, and it takes its toll on him.

 

*

 

There are rumors of a powerful force sensitive girl on Jakku. She protects the lost children there, shielding them from the horrors of the desert planet. Keeping them safe from the likes of thieves, murderers, and traitors.

He asks Luke about her one day when he returns to the Jedi temple.

“If she wanted to be a Jedi, she would come to us,” Luke says calmly, not looking up from his work.

“I don’t think we’re very approachable,” Ben says.

Luke sighs. “If I’ve learned anything in my lifetime, it’s that the Jedi path isn’t for everyone. You can’t force someone to be a Jedi if it doesn’t call to them. There are other ways to master the force.”

“What if the dark side tries to use her?” Ben asks.

Luke shrugs. “These are things that people have to choose for themselves, Ben.”

Ben nods, somewhat disappointed. He knows Luke is right, though. He is curious about this girl, someone so force sensitive that rumors had spread around the entire galaxy. That hadn’t happened in years, if ever.

The fight against the First Order rages on, and the thought of her often slips into his mind. He wonders what she’s doing.

 

*

 

He is 27 when he realizes she’s joined the dark side.

The Resistance has come to Takodana, looking for a lost base. Their numbers are growing, and they need more room to house all the members, more room to keep people safe.       Somehow, the First Order found them. They sky is filled with TIE fighters, and Ben watches as a ship touches down close to the cluster of fighters. They had split into two groups, one to find the base, one to help fend off the First Order. He stands at the forefront of the latter, his lighsaber raised. She exits the First Order ship, red saberstaff in hand. She is clad in all black, eyes hard as flint. She moves gracefully, each step purposeful. She doesn’t flinch as blaster bolts move towards her. She bats each of them away with a small movement of her hand.

It had taken him years to learn how to deflect blaster bolts, and even now, he wasn’t able to do it with much precision. It hits him that this must be the famed force sensitive girl. If she is the prodigy of the First Order, then the Resistance is in for a long war.  

“That’s her,” someone says behind him. “That’s Rey of Jakku.”

 _Rey_. He turns her name over and over in his mind.

An explosion nearly knocks him off his feet, and the battle begins.

 

He is dripping wet, the rain pouring down in buckets around him, when he sees her again. He slices through a Stormtrooper, their white suit clacking as their body slumps to the ground. He looks up to see her. She’s fighting three men, her saberstaff twirling as she spins out of the way of their weapons. She seems to be toying with them, laughing whenever they fail to hit her. She impales one on her saber, hitting him straight in the heart. Ben moves to help them, but is stopped in his tracks when she lights the other end of her saber, catching the second man in the stomach. _No_ , he thinks. Resistance mean, people he’s eaten with, fought side by side with, now dead.

A saberstaff, though. He has never seen one in person. The Jedi never use them, and a Sith Lord hasn’t used one since Darth Maul. She pulls the weapon from both men with jerk.

She swings her saber to catch the last man, now cowering as he stares at his dead companions slashes through the last man’s stomach, and he screams in pain as he falls. Rey looks up, staring straight at Ben. She smiles darkly at him, then turns on her heel and runs. He follows her, his boots sloshing in the mud.  

He pushes through the brush, following her footsteps slapping the ground ahead of him. He bursts through into a clearing and there she is, leaning against a tree, her saber lazily hanging from one hand.

She starts to talk as the battle raging on around them.

“You’re Ben Solo,” she says, pushing off from the tree to walk towards him. “I remember you.”

“And you’re Rey,” he counters. “Remember me?” he asks as an afterthought, his brow furrowing. His fist tightens around the handle of his saber.

“You came to Niima Outpost when I was young.” She circles around him as she talks, and he turns to keep her in his sight. “You and the wookie. You sold your ship?”

She stops walking when she is directly in front of him. She is staring at him so intensely he can barely meet her gaze. “Nothing to say, Jedi?” she says. He doesn’t reply, his jaw clenched. He holds still, waiting for the right time to attack.

He can feel the dark side of the force now that she is so close to him. The steady pull, to let go, to kill, to do something besides stand there. Her eyes bore into him and he nearly gasps. It feels as though the force is tugging him towards her, and it takes all of his willpower to stay where he stands, unmoving.

“You feel it too,” she says, her voice barely audible over the rain. “The pull.”

He nods. “We don’t need to follow everything we feel,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “Of course, you don’t. There is no passion, only peace, blah blah blah.” She waves her hand as she trails off.

She’s so close to him now. If he moves even an inch, he will be able to touch her. The pull of the dark side is so strong. _There is no passion, only peace,_ he recites in his head. But his blood sings for battle, he wants her saber swinging for him and his rising to meet it.

He loses track of how long he stands still. His mind is nearly blank, oddly at peace. His limbs feel as though they’re floating, slightly disconnected from his body. His lightsaber slips from his fingers, falling to the ground.

It takes him a while to realize that she is in his head, too long in his opinion. There is a foreign presence rummaging through his mind. He frowns. His eyes refocus, and all he can see is Rey. Her eyes are half closed, and her hand is outstretched towards him.

An explosion shakes the ground around them. Ben tumbles to the ground in a graceless heap, landing hard on his right shoulder. Another explosion rattles the world again, and Rey falls on top of him, her sharp elbow poking into his stomach. He grunts as she scrambles up, using his chest as leverage.

He lunges for his saber, still on the ground where it had fallen earlier. A shooting pain rises up his shoulder as he wraps his fingers around the hilt. He swings up just in time to stop her saber from taking his head off. He pushes with the force, sending her stumbling backwards, giving himself time to push himself to his feet. She lunges at him again with an angry cry.

He blocks every blow, and he can’t believe it’s just luck. He can see what move she is going to make before she makes it. No, not see. He can’t see anything but the light of their sabers through the torrential downpour. But feel -- as though he is part of her mind, and he can feel the anticipatory moment behind each thrust of her saber. He feels her foot lift from the ground to lung towards him, and he leans to his left and she swings to his right, her blade searing his sleeve.

She continues to swing, growing wilder and wilder with each moment. Then she stops, stepping back and out of the reach of the green light of his saber. He eyes her warily. He has always been one to overanalyze, to wait for his opponent to strike first. He waits as she stares at him, her chest heaving. Then, suddenly, the red beams of her lightsaber disappear. His eyes can’t follow her through the rain, and he whips around wildly, looking for her. He feels an anticipatory movement, powerful. Too late, he realizes what she is about to do. Something tackles him to the ground, and then she is on top of him, her hands closing around his throat, her legs pressing his arms into the ground, the force holding the rest of him.

“What are you doing?” she screams at him, her face pressed close to his, dripping wet tendrils of her hair stinging his face as the wind whips them around. He can’t answer, partly because of her hands around his neck, partly because he doesn’t know himself. His hands grab her wrists, and in a different situation, he would be able to overpower her. He’s bigger, stronger, older, more practiced. But she’s more powerful than he is in the force, and his efforts to push back against the phantom weight bearing down on him does nothing. He can feel her hot spike of anger in his mind, making his blood boil. But how is that possible? He’s not trying to look into her mind. He’s pried into the minds of others before, but he has always been able to look in and out as he chose. He doesn’t know how to stop it now, to pull out of her mind.

Her hands loosen around his throat, and he is drawing in giant gasps of air. She stares down at him, her lips parted, and he feels her anger dissipate. Why can he feel her emotions?

“I can feel what you’re feeling,” she says. Her anger fizzles down, a rumbling storm in the background. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” he coughs.

Their conversation is cut short when a blaster bolt hits her in the shoulder. She cries out in pain, her hands releasing his throat. He gasps, his hand flying as another spike of pain hits is already injured shoulder. How? How could he feel this?

He looks around to see Resistance soldiers, nearly a dozen of them, standing with their weapons trained into the darkness where she disappeared.  

 

He stumbles back to Chewie’s ship, plopping down in the second pilot’s chair. Luke stares out the window over his head. They lift off to tail the other Resistance ships and TIE fighters back to base.

He leaves Takodana with a niggling presence at the back of his mind. He assumes it’s a remnant from their fight, that it will go away after he’s had a good night sleep, healed, recovered more from fighting. It feels strange, like a comfort and a curse. It feels like her.

 

*

 

He doesn’t see her again for another 6 months, when the small, niggling presence turns out to be something more.

He’s lying in bed, his arms crossed behind his head, elbows pressed against the headboard. He’s floating somewhere between meditation and sleep when her force signature appears close by. Too close. He springs up out of bed and grabs his saber, the green light illuminating the dark room. “How did you get here,” he growls. She’s standing in the middle of his room. Her hair is free of its distinctive three buns, and it cascades down around her shoulders.

She walks to his desk chair and plops down, resting her feet on the edge of his desk. “I don’t know,” she says. She grabs the pen off his desk, spinning it around in her fingers.

“Interesting,” she says.

He hasn’t moved from his spot by his bed. He reaches out with the force and flicks the light switch, illuminating the room with a soft yellow glow.  “How did you get here,” he says, enunciating every word. “If I don’t get answers, I’ll start swinging.”

She sighs and turns to look at him, her bare feet sliding from his desk. “I’m as in the dark as you are, Solo. I was in my rooms, and now I’m here. The force seems to have some ideas of its own.”

Ben can feel her in his head. She’s poking, prodding, at his mind. He clenches his fists.

“Get out of my head,’ he yells with a wild surge of the force. And suddenly, he is in her mind.

_He is in the blazing sands of Jakku, and he sees Rey, young and scared and alone._

_There is a voice in her head, whispering._ Come with me, child _._

You are not alone.

_Rey, still young and wide eyed, called to meet Snoke for the first time. Boarding his ship. The kind eyes and soft promises in the beginning, turned to abuse in the end._

_“The pain will make you stronger,” Snoke voice booms as she writhes on the floor of the throne room._

He snaps back to his own mind to find himself sitting on the floor. He can feel her anger through the bond, and he looks up to see her on the floor as well. He scrambles up, but she is faster than him.

“Fuck you, Solo,” she yells. She slams him up against the wall, holds him there with the force. Dark energy through the force is all around him. He has seen her in battle, he has seen her kill, but he has never seen her angry like this.

“You had no right,” she says, walking closer to him. He can’t move, can barely breathe with the way the force is pressing down on him. She’s close enough that he can see the tears forming in her eyes.

“You had no right,” she says again, her voice catching. Her mouth freezes open as her hand smacks against his bare chest. He gasps at the sensation. It’s as if every cell of his body is in tune with hers. As if every past moment in their lives had led to this one. They breathe in together. His eyes drift to hers.

“What is this?” he whispers. His hand comes up to lock around her wrist. This is different from the time on Takodana. She was wearing gloves, and both of them had long sleeves. They skin hadn’t touched. He hadn’t felt anything like this.

“I don’t know.” She swallows thickly. Her eyes drift down to his hand clasped around her wrist.

“The force has brought us together for a reason,” she says. She takes a step closer to him and her hand slides farther up his chest, pulling his hand with hers. It settles on his shoulder. His skin feels electrified where she has touched him. The force holding him in place dissipates, and it’s his turn to step closer to her. His other hand reaches to wrap around her waist. Her shirt is cropped, her midriff bare, and they both shudder at the further skin on skin contact.

He has never thought about touch in a way like this before. _There is no passion, only peace_ cites the Jedi code. But she incites something in him, something that he’s never felt before. Something dangerous pools in his stomach.

She is shorter than him, and his head bends down as she takes another step closer. Her hot breath ghosts over his chin, and he wants nothing more than to touch his lips to hers. If a simple touch feels like this, when what would a kiss feel like? His gaze drifts down to her lips. They are pink and they look so soft, and he wants to run his tongue over them, see how she tastes.

Her other hand ghosts over his stomach, and he inhales sharply. This, this is too much. Every cell of his body is on fire. They will burn themselves out of they keep on this way. She stretches up on her tiptoes to reach him, because she really is so small compared to him, and presses her lips to his.

When their lips touch, something inside him feels right. Her lips are soft, and his heart sings as she moves against him.

She starts fading in his arms, and he holds on tighter, unsure of how to keep her here. She disappears from his arms, far too soon.

There is now a hole in his heart that should be filled with her presence.

 

*

 

The first time he wakes up with her lithe form pressed against him, he is so surprised that he falls out of bed, dragging the blankets with him.

Her head peeks over the side of the bed, her hair down and messy around her shoulders.

“You sure know how to make an entrance,” she says dryly, a smile playing on her lips.

He untangles himself from the blankets, standing up and plopping them back on the bed. He’s reminding of his awkward teenage years, gangly and clumsy. Heat rushes to his cheeks when he realizes that she is clad only in underwear and her breast band, the majority of her skin on display. She rearranges the blankets over her legs. He stands beside the bed awkwardly, unsure of what to do, unsure how to end the force bond, or if he should end it at all.

She gestures to the bed beside her. “You can stay. If you want.” She holds his gaze, her cheeks faintly pink.

He slips into bed beside her, his arm tingling where it brushes against hers. They lie side by side, saying nothing, for what feels like hours.

He hears Rey sigh. “Fuck it,” she says, and shifts closer to him, resting on his arm and wrapping her arm around his chest. Her head rests closer to his. If he turns his head, their lips will meet. His skin is alight where they touch, and something about this feels so _right_.

She cranes her neck to kiss him, and he wraps his arms fully around her.

He falls asleep to the touch of her fingers tracing circles on his chest.

He wakes up to the gentle light of the day cycle and her hair tickling his nose. He feels more rested than he has in months.

 

They begin sleeping in the same bed as much as they can. Sometimes the force brings him to her, to her cold, unfeeling room on the First Order Supremacy. Sometimes the force brings her to his room on his ship. Sometimes they sleep on opposite sides of the bed, comforted by the fact that the other is there. Sometimes they sleep with only their hands intertwined, reaching each other even though they are lightyears away. Ben squeezes her hand and she squeezes back, a confirmation that they are not alone. Sometimes they sleep pressed against each other, trying to forget that they are on opposite sides of a war that seems as though it will never end.

 

In the late nights they spend together, when they are unable to close their eyes without seeing death and carnage and destruction, they talk. Mostly about the past, as thoughts of the present are too difficult to think about. He tells her about his childhood, the never-ending pressure of being the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. Ben tells her of all the places he’s been, and she does the same. He tells her of his ancestral home of Naboo, and stories of his mother’s lost planet of Alderaan. She tells him about her childhood on Jakku, the harsh sands and the biting hunger. She tells him about some happy times too.

“Every robot I met loved me,” she chuckled. “I was one of the only humans on Jakku who bothered to learn to speak binary.”

“I taught myself and some of the other children to read,” she continues. “They needed someone to protect them.” She has a faraway look in her eyes when she says this, and Ben wonders how things could have been different if she had trained to be a Jedi instead of a Sith.

 

 

He realizes that he’s 9 years older than her, and that she doesn’t know when her birthday is. Today is his birthday. Chewie commed him that morning, singing happy birthday with as many members of the Resistance that would fit into the video. He tells Rey about it that night, and she smiles.

“You didn’t tell me it was your birthday,” she points out. He shrugs.

“You never asked.” She slaps him on the shoulder.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“28,” he replies.

She raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were so _old_.”

“How old are you then?” He had just assumed they were the same age, or close enough.

“19,” she says. He starts. He had no idea she was so young. “Almost 20, I think.”

“You think? When’s your birthday?” he asks.

 “I don’t know,” she says. “I know the year I was born, but I can’t remember the day.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

 

He finds out that she speaks many languages, picked up whenever she went to Niima outpost to trade or scavenge. She teaches him how to speak some Shyriiwook, laughing when he stumbles over the words.

“No, like this,” she says, repeating a word. He’s always been able to understand the language but has never tried to speak it. The sounds feel strange in his mouth, and he his sure that he looks and sounds ridiculous.

“Like this,” she says, reaching up to rearrange his lips into a different shape.

When he sees Chewie next, he says hello in near perfect Shyriiwook. The look on the wookie’s face is priceless, and Ben laughs.

 

 

“I wish I could travel,” she says to him one night. “Just for fun. No missions, no fighting, no destroying planets. I want to see what they were like before the First Order.” She pauses before continuing. “Maybe somewhere cold. I’ve only seen snow once.”

She would hate living in the cold, he thinks to himself. As it is, she presses herself tight against him when the air intake his particularly chilly. He supposes that growing up in the desert hasn’t given her tolerance for anything but hot weather. He tells her as much.

She elbows him gently in the side. “It’s not my fault. You just run so warm,” she says with a smile.

 

 

Sometimes, when the war has taken too much of a toll on them both, they fight.

They scream at each other about the war, the light, the dark. It’s during these times where the reality of their situation hits them. They are on opposite sides of a galaxy wide war, spanning years, generations. If anyone found out about their nights together, they would likely be killed for treason, if not by someone in power, then by someone angry enough to enact their own justice.

Ben has heard of the cruelty of Snoke. He wonders how she keeps him a secret. He poses the question to her one night as she lays her head on the pillow next to him.

She cringes at the question. “He has he suspicions,” she says softly. “I’ve been punished for it.” Ben reaches out to grab her hand under the covers. “I managed to convince him that I’m bringing you to the dark side.”

 

 

He wakes up one morning with his cock straining tightly against his pants, pressing against her. She wakes up at that moment as well, as turns to face him.

His face burns with embarrassment. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but she steals the words from his mouth with a kiss and slides her hands down his waistband to fist around his cock.

The morning ends with her legs thrown over his shoulders, his tongue buried in her cunt as she cries out his name.

 

*

 

He comes back from another mission bone tired. The days are beginning to blur together in his head. His nightly visits with Rey are the only way he keeps track of time anymore. He can’t even find the strength to shower and collapses on top of his bed the second he steps into his room. He feels the tug of their force bond, and she appears sitting in his desk chair, her back ramrod straight. He feels a flash of pain as their minds bridge. There is a bruise on her side, and she winces every time she moves. It covers most of the skin on the left side of her stomach.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask what happened. He can assume. He’s seen what Snoke does to her. Inflict pain, channel the pain into rage, channel rage into the force. He just carefully presses a bacta patch to her side and carries her to bed. They’re both covered in dirt and grime and can barely stay awake.

“Sometimes I think you’re the only light thing left in the galaxy,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“There’s light in you too, Rey,” he whispers.

“There’s no light,” she whispers. She doesn’t continue speaking, just drifts to sleep, her soft breaths ghosting over his cheek. He knows that can’t be true. She makes him feel whole again, the one bright spot in the consuming darkness of the war. He falls asleep with her in his arms, his face buried in her hair.

*

He feels the force bond snap into place late one night. He is sprawled in bed, dozing, waiting for her to appear. His eyes open halfway when he feels the blankets on his bed lift up. He opens his arms and she slides into them, pressing herself tightly against his chest.

“Ben,” she says, her voice muffled against his skin.

“Hm?” he sounds, his arms wrapping even tighter around her.

“I’m so tired of fighting.”

He kisses her and buries his face in her hair.

He wakes up alone, and he doesn’t see her for months afterward.

 

He drives himself crazy waiting for her.

The first night she doesn’t appear, he thinks nothing of it. Oftentimes, one or both of them would work through the night, or they would be on different day cycles.

The first week she doesn’t appear, he starts to worry. He feels her through the force still. Her force signature burns as bright as ever. He sends questions down their bond every day. _Are you okay? Rey, where are you?_ She responds with _I’m okay. Just dealing with something,_ if she responds at all.

After two weeks, he can’t take it anymore. _Rey, I miss you._ Something soothing creeps through the bond, smoothing down his erratic thoughts. _I’m okay, Ben. I won’t be able to see you for a while._

 _Why?_ He thinks. She never responds.

After a month, she stops responding all together. He’s never felt so lost. He barely sleeps. He loses so much time, without her near daily presence to keep him grounded. Days blur into weeks, weeks blur into months. A piece of his soul is missing without her.

*

Chewie notices something is wrong the next time Ben lands at the Resistance base. His eyes are bloodshot, his beard unshaven, his hair much longer than he normally allows it to grow. Chewie voices his concern the second he steps off the ramp of his ship.

Ben sighs. “I’m okay, Uncle Chewie. I promise.”

Chewie growls, and Ben blushes. “Of course I can take care of myself, Chewie.” His voice cracks and he looks away. “I’m fine,” he says. Chewie looks at him as if he doesn’t believe a word.

Suddenly he’s sitting down with Chewie and telling him almost everything. He keeps the more explicit parts of their relationship to himself, though Chewie likely puts two and two together from his use of “nightly” to describe their visits.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says when he finishes.

Chewie cocks his head to the side and coos gently, placing his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“Because I’m worried about her! I’ve seen what Snoke does and I just…” He stops. “I love her, Chewie. I love her, and I know we’re on opposite sides of a war, and I know how fucked up it is, what we’ve been doing, but I love her.” He’s never said this out loud, but it feels like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

*

He is 29 when she brings him to Snoke.          

She is 20 now, the prodigy of the First Order, one of the most powerful Sith Lords in living memory.

He is on Lothal, trying to secure more TIE fighters for the Resistance, when she finds him. He stares at her when she appears in front of him, seemingly out of thin air. At first he thinks their force bond is finally open again. But something about her feels more real, and he realizes that she is really here, standing in front of him.

“Rey,” he breathes. His heart stutters at the sight of her.

Then she rips into his mind, and everything goes dark.

He wakes up on the floor of a ship, his arms tied behind him and his legs shackled.

She stands in front of him, her boots pointed towards his face. He turns awkwardly to stare up at her.

“Rey,” he says, and his heart breaks at the look on her face. She is not the Rey that warmed his bed at night. Her eyes are hard and cold, and her force signature is violent and dark.

He wonders what happened in the months that she didn’t speak to him. He struggles against his bonds, the hard metal of his cuffs cutting into his skin.

“Rey,” he pleads, and she doesn’t look at him, barely acknowledges his presence. Eventually, he stops struggling and lies unmoving, with his cheek pressed to the cold floor.

He must have dozed off at some point, as he wakes to someone hauling him up to stand. She uses the force, not even touching him. His heart breaks.

He follows her limply off of her ship and onto a larger one. From the looks of it, they are on the First Order Supremacy. He feels numb, as if he is detached from his body. He had held out hope for so long that the Rey he knew was still out there and seeing proof of the opposite is crushing him. She had been right. There is no light left.

She leads him straight to Snoke. It is the first time Ben has seen him in person. He is physically put off by Snoke’s appearance. He looks as if he’s rotting, from the inside out.

Rey hands Snoke Ben’s lightsaber, and she steps back, out of his vision. The cuffs snap from Ben’s arms, and before he can blink, he his lifted from the ground by the force. This throat starts to constrict, and he can’t breathe. His feet no longer touch the ground, and his throat is squeezed tighter and tighter. His legs kick in protest, and then the force holds them still.

“The prodigal son,” Snoke says. He can’t breathe, can barely see as the life is choked out of him. “Rey,” he chokes out, his voiced strained. His vision turns back around the edges.

“She will kill you,” Snoke says, and Ben’s heart drops to his feet. Rey is behind him, and he hears the twin blades of her lightsaber ignite. He will be killed by the hand of woman he still loves.

“Yes!” Snoke yells. It takes all of Ben’s strength to keep his eyes open. Black is taking over more and more of his vision. His eyes are locked on Snoke. He will die in this throne room, his body at the mercy of the First Order. He will never get to see Chewie or Master Luke again. Or Rey. Tears begin form in his eyes.

“I can feel it! She will turn her blade to strike against her true enemy-“ Snoke’s voice stops, along with the crushing presence on Ben’s throat.

Ben falls to the floor in a heap, coughing and gasping as air finally finds its way inside his lungs. He scrambles backwards, turns around to look towards Rey. She’s staring at something behind him, and he turns around to see the green of his lightsaber impaled through Snoke’s torso. He turns to face her, his mouth agape. Their bond snakes open again, after months of quiet, and tears fall from his eyes at the feeling. He can see everything now. Her careful planning in the previous months. Every effort to shield him from Snoke, to keep the darkest reaches of her mind away from this monster. The moment she decided to kill him.

The moment she decided that she would do anything to keep Ben safe.

She is beautiful, shrouded in both the dark and light sides of the force, her eyes ablaze and her body in a fighting stance. Her fingers twitch, and his saber is flying towards him. He reaches up and catches it in his right hand. He stands up fully, his eyes wide. Her eyes meet his and she nods, almost imperceptibly, the corners of her lips quirking upwards.

They turn, standing back to back as Snoke’s praetorian guard rush towards them. Their bond blows open, and they fight perfectly in sync. Part of his mind is with hers the entire fight. With every swing of his saber, every time he dodges a blow, he thinks of her. They fight together, and they are power, they are destruction, they are unstoppable.

They don’t stop moving until every last guard lies dead around them. They stand facing away from one another, and he turns around to look at her. Her buns are falling out of her hair and her robes are slightly torn, and she has never been more beautiful to him than she is in this moment. His heart bursts when she turns her gaze towards him. He would fight a thousand battles, relive every moment of his life again if it led him here. They’re both panting and sweating, adrenaline high from the battle.

“Rey,” he breathes. He reaches her in a few strides and slams his lips to hers. They kiss in the glorious aftermath of the fight, their lightsabers still in hand, green and red light, light and dark, mixed together. One of his arms wraps around her waist and he pulls her flush against him.

“Ben,” she mumbles against his lips, her voice a gentle sigh. Her lightsaber falls to the floor, still alight as she wraps both her arms around his neck. His ‘saber falls next to hers as he wraps his other arm around her.

She starts pushing him back, half with her hands, half with the force. Dark energy swells around him. He pays no attention to the bodies scattered around them on the floor, or the sparks flying around the room. She is his only focus, his queen, his love, the only thing in his universe at the moment.  

One of her hands loosens its hold around his neck, and something goes flying across the room. It takes him a moment to realize that the object is Snoke’s body. Her eyes flash.

She pushes him down on Snoke’s now empty throne. He pulls her down onto his lap, his hands moving from her back to her ass to her legs, now straddling him. She rocks her hips against his and he moans low and deep in his throat. He is achingly hard, straining against his pants.

She stands up to shuck off her clothes, and he slips out of his while still perched on the throne. She’s naked now, bared before him. He’s seen her unclothed before, but never like this. Her eyes are wild from battle, her hair wild, darkness running through them both.

He groans as she sinks down on his cock, her back pressed against his chest. Her legs spread over his and his hands fall to the inside of her thighs. His hands tangle in her hair and he tugs on it, undoing her buns, her head falling back against his shoulder.

He feels the dark side of the force creep farther forward. There is no peace, there is only passion, passion and lust for her, this beautiful creature in front of him. She moans as he peppers kisses down her throat and his hands reach up to palm her breasts. The sounds they are making echo around the throne room, and the dark inside of him sings.

She shifts on his lap, turns around lightning quick, and straddles him again, this time facing him. He smashes his lips to hers, swallowing her moans. He lifts her hips up and slams them back down. She buries her head in the crook of his neck, sinking her teeth into his shoulder, her moans muffled against his skin. She is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, ever heard.

His head dips down to her breasts and he runs his tongue over each of her nipples in turn. He leaves a trail of live bites over her chest. She arches into him, moving faster on his cock. His hand snakes down her body to find her clit, pressing against the sensitive bud. She comes loudly, her moan bordering on a scream. He follows immediately afterwards, her name wrenched from his mouth, echoing off the high walls.

 

 

“Join me, Ben,” she says afterwards, when they have put their clothes back on and she is perched in his lap as he sits on the throne, her legs laid sideways over his. “Rule the galaxy with me.” Her head rests on his shoulder as she lazily cards her fingers through his hair with one hand. Her other hand is entwined with his, resting on her lap. He can feel the dark energy lurking inside her, but it’s tamped down, so far away in this moment. She feels like light and warmth and happiness in his arms.

“You could come back with me,” he says. “Be a Jedi. Join the light.”

She sighs. “I don’t think that’s my path, Ben.” He hugs her closer, and she leans up to kiss his cheek.

He remembers nothing after that. One second he is awake and she is in his arms, and the next, he is waking up alone, his lightsaber placed neatly in his lap.

It feels like betrayal, and it cuts him like a knife.

He pokes his head cautiously out of the throne room and is surprised to find members of the Resistance in the hallway.

They cheer when they make their way into the throne room and find Snoke’s body.

 

 

He can no longer feel her signature in the Force. He thinks nothing of it for a time, as she’s disappeared before. He figures she is using a cloaking technique. He could never hide his signature completely, but then again, she has always been more powerful than him.

He begins to worry when 6 months pass without a trace of her. Rumors are spreading all over the galaxy. The First Order is planning something big. Ben Solo killed her that day in the throne room too, and he is lying for whatever reason. The successor to the throne, one of the most powerful Sith lords in history, gone without a trace. No one knows what to do.

He wants to scream when he hears other members of the Resistance gossip about her in whispers. They don’t know her. They don’t know how soft her kisses were when she slipped in his bed at night. They don’t know her hopes, her dreams, her loneliness. They don’t know her like he does.

They don’t miss her like he does.

 

*

 

He is 30 when he begins his search for her.

He drags himself across the galaxy, to every planet where she wanted to travel. Kivarova. Coruscant. Raydonia. Mazor. Aviishan. Naboo. His life is consumed by this task, by finding her. He goes to a planet, and he finds somewhere to watch and look. Sometimes he crawls on rooftops, watching, waiting. Following flashes of brown hair, buns, and hazel eyes. He finds places she would love, waits day after day. Until the hopelessness in his heart is unbearable, and he moves to a new planet to continue his search.

If he’s feeling brave enough, usually after a few drinks, he asks around. It’s vague. He can’t very well ask about Snoke’s former apprentice. But he does try.

 

 

He’s picked up the bad habit of drinking on the search. Gambling dens are a great place to gather information. Shady clientele who know things they shouldn’t, loose tongues from alcohol. The only problem is that people often question him. He’s too large to blend into a crowd at his full height, so he makes himself smaller, hunching down and always sitting. He looks a little too much like Han Solo, has been seen in too many Resistance holos to be completely unrecognizable. When he is spotted, when someone guesses his name, he uses the force and slips out quietly.

“Brown hair. Green eyes. Force sensitive,” he repeats to an attentive bartender on Coruscant. He’s about six drinks in now, and his words are beginning to slur.

The twi’lek bartender shakes her head. “Shit, it’s been years since I’ve seen anyone force sensitive.” She cocks her head to the side, staring more intently at him. “Must have been someone special.”

He mumbles something incoherent, his eyes focused on his drink. How can he explain what Rey was, still is, to him?

“I can see it’s still a sore spot,” the bartender says. “People don’t drink like that for nothing.”

He stumbles back to his ship and collapses into his bed.

He dreams of Rey, her nails down his back, writhing beneath him as he moves inside her.

 

*

 

His is 33 when he finally, _finally_ finds her.

He is in bed, his ship parked in a bay on Jakku when something tugs on him through the force. He sits straight up, nearly falling out of bed. He had come to Jakku on a whim. One night, when he missed her so much he couldn’t sleep, he set course for Jakku. He wanted to see where she grew up, if there were any traces of her left on the planet.  

As he exits his ship and steps onto the dry sands, the pull is stronger. A small thought, a gentle tug on the force. He tells himself it nothing. He’s followed phantoms before, chasing ghosts and dust, convincing himself that he would find something.

He chases the pull until it disappears, and he’s left standing alone in the desert.

 

 

He finds his way to Niima outpost and stops to get something to eat and drink. He’s halfway through a glass of Corellian whiskey, almost ready to give up for the night, when he feels a new spark through the force. It slips its way into his mind without his knowing, and it takes a few minutes to notice the change.  He sits straight up, spilling the contents of his glass on the counter. This feels different. This feels like _her_ , the same gentle invasion of his mind that he felt the first time the force brought them together.

He stands up from his barstool, nearly knocking it to the ground. He throws some money on the bar and sprints out the door, ignoring the started cries of those he bumps into on the way out.

 _Rey, Rey, Rey_. His heart beats to her name. He follows the trail of the force through the streets, pushing through crowds, ignoring the withering stares of those around him.

He rounds a corner to find himself standing in an alley, and there she is. She looks older, her skin browner from the sun, and the buns in her hair slightly bigger from how the strands have grown.  

He barrels into her at full speed, sweeping her off her feet and into a bruising kiss.

She squeals when her feet leave the ground, wrapping her legs around his waist as she presses her mouth to his.

Eventually, she pulls away, and leans her head into the crook of his neck.

“I missed you,” she mumbles, her breath against his skin sending chills up and down his spine.

 

“Rey,” he pleads. “Please come back with me. Talk to me. I need you.” His voice cracks. “I miss you.” His eyes fill with tears. How does he tell her how much those words mean to him? How does he tell her that a piece of his soul has been gone ever since she disappeared?

She squeezes him tighter and kisses his cheek, and their bond is fully opened, for the first time in years.

He doesn’t remember where they go after that. His thoughts are too consumed by her- the gentle curve of her neck, the comforting, long lost presence of her mind in his. The way her hand feels in his as she leads him through the sands. The way she laughs when he stops walking to kiss her. The way her hands run over his back, and her touch feel like heaven.

They climb onto a ship, where he assumes she’s been staying all this time. The second the door is closed, she leans up to kiss him hungrily. He grabs her hips and loses himself. He fucks her against a wall, their clothes half off, pawing at each other as they kiss every inch of skin they can reach. The slap of skin on skin echoes around her ship, and it feels so good to touch her again.

His mouth is on her neck, her breasts, her lips, his moans muffled against the softness of her skin. They come at the same time, their force bond a never ending loop of pleasure.

She unlocks her legs from his waist and he deposits her, somewhat unsteadily, on the ground. They shed their clothes fully, and he follows her to the bedroom. He pulls her close as they lie together, locking his arms around her. He rests his head on her chest, damp with sweat, and turns his nose to rest in the crook of her neck.

“You were always meant for me, Ben Solo,” she murmurs sleepily into his hair. He hums in agreement and loses himself to sleep.

 

 

He wakes to a gentle touch. He opens his eyes to find Rey leaning over him. Her hair is down, pooling around her shoulders and on his face, and she looks like a goddess above him, surrounded by hazy light. She smiles at him.

There’s something familiar about the ship they’re on. It takes him a moment to realize that they’re on the Millennium Falcon, the ship he had left on Jakku so long ago, the first time he had crossed paths with Rey. He looks up at her in surprise when he realizes.

“It reminded me of you,” she says. He pulls her to him and captures her lips with his.  

 

Later, after they’ve laid in bed and fucked and kissed to their heart’s content, he asks her the question that’s been burning in his mind for the past few years.

“Why did you leave?” he asks. He’s almost afraid of the answer.

She sighs. “I just needed to disappear, I think. I didn’t want to lead the First Order. I didn’t want to join the Resistance. Hell, someone in the Resistance would probably have killed me that day if I’d stuck around, whether I killed Snoke or not.”

He opens his mouth to protest, and she silences him with a raised eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have let them hurt you,” he says. He would have done anything to protect her. He still would.

Eventually, their hunger drives them out of bed and off the ship. They walk through Niima outpost, pausing to look at stalls and shops.

“No one’s ever recognized you?” he asks as they sit in a café eating fragrant Kuafa stew.

She shrugs. “I keep to myself mostly. And if anyone ever does, I use the force. No one willingly stays here. No one’s here to make friends. Besides, it’s not like anyone kept looking for me.”

“I looked,” he says, pouting. She laughs, leaning across the table to kiss him on the cheek.

After they finish eating, they walk back to the Falcon, stumbling as they refuse to let go of each other. They sit in the open doorway of the ship to watch the sun set. Jakku doesn’t feel as desolate with her in his arms.

 

He stays on Jakku for a month as they repair the Millennium Falcon together. It hasn’t flown more than a few miles in years. He sells his ship to the nicest looking vendor there and uses the money to buy all the tools he needs. He moves all his possessions onto the Falcon with her, their lives fully, finally, twining together in person.

When the ship is fixed, they load it with food and water, enough provisions to last them for months.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks as the Falcon lifts out of Jakku’s atmosphere.

“Everywhere,” she says, squeezing his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I'm going to put up another chapter of the same storyline through Rey's POV. Or maybe it'll be a companion fic? I wanted some more dark!Rey, and couldn't put this story down.


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